Tate, McCarthy lead former Irish football players at NFL Pro Day

Tate, McCarthy lead former Irish football players at NFL Pro Day
14 outgoing Notre Dame football players participated in a Pro Day workout for NFL scouts Tuesday afternoon at the Loftus Center. Jimmy Clausen was there but did not work out as he continues to recover from toe surgery.
Posted: 5:42 PM Mar 23, 2010
Reporter: Angelo Di Carlo
Email Address: angelo.dicarlo@wndu.com

Story 0 Comments Font Size: 14 outgoing Notre Dame football players participated in a Pro Day workout for NFL scouts Tuesday afternoon at the Loftus Center.

Former Irish quarterback Jimmy Clausen was in attendance but did not workout as he continues to recover from toe surgery. Clausen will hold a private workout on April 9th.

Jimmy did make himself available for any scout that wanted to talk to him and Clausen was seen having a Lenghty conversation with Redskins scout Shemy Schembechler at the end of the workouts. Shemy is the son of former Michigan coach Bo Schembechler.

The Redskins have the 4th overall pick and a new head coach in Mike Shananan and are likely in the market for a quarterback. Clausen is expected to be drafted somewhere in the top 15 of the first round.

Clausen's made target last season--Golden Tate--did workout, although he didn't do too much because of the major success he had at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis a few weeks ago.

Tate, sporting his golden cleats, did individual wide receiver workouts and the 60-yard shuttle (something he didn't do at the combine).

Tate ran a fantastic 40 time of 4.42 seconds in Indy and that is likely raising his stock.

"I'm hoping for the first round, everyone is hoping for the first round," Tate said Tuesday. "I just want to play for a team who thinks I can come in and help them right away. So you know, I want to come in and make a difference and help them get to playoff and hopefully a Super Bowl."

Perhaps no player improved his stock more than safety Kyle McCarthy. The former Irish captain is known as a guy who can get the job done on the field but perhaps didn't have the measurables and wasn't a good enough athlete.

McCarthy charted near the top in a number of categories at the combine and improved his 40 time in a big way Tuesday with a time of 4.55 seconds. That's almost a full tenth of a second faster than from his Indy workout.

"It's still early in the process," McCarthy explained. "I can still move up or down. Still looking at the mid-to-late rounds, and you know like I said, it's still early in the process so, I'm kind of sitting around with my fingers crossed."

Center Eric Olsen and right tackle Sam Young are also projected to be drafted. Where and when is the question that is driving them and everyone else in the process crazy.

"it's awful," Olsen said about the process. "it's really tough to kind of sit around and wonder what kind of city you're going to be in for the next couple of years, and what's going to happen in the next month or so. But, you know all you can do is try to do the best you can with these kind of work outs, and just hope for the best."

When asked if he had a clue where he could be drafted, Young was pretty clear.

"No," he said with a big laugh.

Olsen and Young focused specifically on position drills.

Paul Duncan, Morrice Richardson and Asaph Schwapp all recorded at least 30 reps in bench press.